Hot Topics:

Fort Morgan Breaking News, Sports, Weather, Traffic

Museum fundraisers seeing fruits of labor in new exhibits' progress

Board members get sneak peek tour of West Gallery

By Jenni Grubbs

Times Staff Writer

Posted:
09/27/2013 06:17:23 PM MDT

Jerral Danford checks out some of the latest graphics to be installed in the West Gallery at Fort Morgan Museum during a sneak peek tour for Fort Morgan Heritage Foundation Board members Thursday. (Jenni Grubbs / Fort Morgan Times)

FORT MORGAN — — What a difference a month makes.

What were blank walls now have brightly colored graphics, illustrating the stories of the railroad coming to Fort Morgan, the workers in the irrigated sugar beet fields and much more.

Clear, plastic cases await the placement of historic artifacts.

Wooden cases are lit up and ready to tell the stories of their exhibit.

A railroad signal stands tall next to the shingled depot structure.

Small LED lights shine down from above in most areas, instead of the large, imposing flood lights only left in one corner.

These were among the surprises that greeted the Fort Morgan Heritage Foundation Board members when they toured the West Gallery at Fort Morgan Museum at the end of their meeting Thursday.

Fort Morgan Heritage Foundation Treasurer Rob Carruth, left, and board member Mike Erker use spyglasses to get a better view of the tiny parts of the new model of the Old Fort at Fort Morgan Museum, as Heritage Foundation President Don Ostwald peers down at the large display Thursday. (Jenni Grubbs / Fort Morgan Times)

Some of these things have been shown and written about in these pages previously, but what the board members saw during their sneak peek tour gave them a much clearer picture of how much progress has been made on the major project of redesigning the permanent museum galleries.

"I think it's good progress," Heritage Foundation President Don Ostwald said. "It's slow, but sure. I really like the quality."

Overall, he called the changes in the West Gallery "impressive."

Ostwald said he liked all the signage he was seeing so far.

"It's important we're accurate with what we're trying to show," he said, "and I think we've achieved that."

Foundation board member Bill Baker had a big grin on his face as he toured the gallery.

Advertisement

"It's coming, isn't it?" he said. "It's going to be an awful good addition."

Foundation board member Anita Baltazar took especial interest in the beet field graphic panel.

"That was me as a kid," she said, pointing up at a girl in a bonnet leaning over and picking beets. "I hoed beets. Your back hurt, your knees hurt, but you did it."

Even though he has been working on the project, retired Museum Director Marne Jurgeymeyer said he still found some surprises on this tour. He said he liked what he was seeing.

Redesign project manager and Museum Educator Andrew Dunehoo said it was both nerve-wracking and gratifying to have the foundation board members tour the gallery and see the progress.

"These are the people responsible for garnering the support," Dunehoo said. "We haven't been left wanting. They've done a fantastic job making it a financial feasibility."

He said he was happy to hear their pleased reactions to the exhibits, which are much closer to completion in the West Gallery, which now is expected to open to the public in late October or early November.

Contractor Traub Design Associates will make another trip to Fort Morgan in mid-October to bring the last graphic panels and some other finishing touches, Dunehoo said.

This buffalo head will be part of the new exhibits in the West Gallery at Fort Morgan Museum. Here, Museum Educator Andrew Dunehoo, left, gives a sneak peek tour Thursday of the recent progress to the exhibits in the gallery. (Jenni Grubbs / Fort Morgan Times)

The Traubs also will bring the real-life Stinson airplane that will hang in the East Gallery as part of its coming redesign, which will be Phase II of the project.

And the windmill that Baker acquired for the foundation also will be part of that part of the East Gallery redesign project.

Both new lights (left) and old lights (right) can be seen in the still-closed West Gallery at Fort Morgan Museum in this picture taken Thursday. Once the renovations and redesign work is completed in both galleries, only the new, energy-efficient LED lights will be in the galleries. They will save the city several thousand dollars annually in electrical costs, according to Museum Educator Andrew Dunehoo, who also is the exhibits redesign project manager. (Jenni Grubbs / Fort Morgan Times)

Anita Baltazar points up at the new beet field graphic panel that is part of the redesigned farming and irrigation exhibit at Fort Morgan Museum. "That was me as a kid," she told fellow Fort Morgan Heritage Foundation Board member Jerral Danford, right, during the board members' sneak peek Thursday at the recent progress on the exhibits. (Jenni Grubbs / Fort Morgan Times)

Article Comments

We reserve the right to remove any comment that violates our ground rules, is spammy, NSFW, defamatory, rude, reckless to the community, etc.

We expect everyone to be respectful of other commenters. It's fine to have differences of opinion, but there's no need to act like a jerk.

Use your own words (don't copy and paste from elsewhere), be honest and don't pretend to be someone (or something) you're not.

Our commenting section is self-policing, so if you see a comment that violates our ground rules, flag it (mouse over to the far right of the commenter's name until you see the flag symbol and click that), then we'll review it.